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Mental-health providers urge Senate to restore 988 funding after House cut
Summary
Multiple behavioral-health providers told the Senate Finance Committee that cuts to the budget’s 988 appropriation would leave crisis lines and mobile crisis services underfunded as call volumes continue to rise.
Leaders of Ohio community behavioral-health providers told the Senate Finance Committee that 988 suicide-and-crisis lifeline services are experiencing rapidly rising demand and require restored funding in HB 96. Joseph Nijeweski of North Central Mental Health and Recovery reported call-volume growth and said his center expects to handle more than 40,000 calls in 2025; he said a monthly example showed calls rising from 1,122 in January 2023 to 3,287 in April 2025. Nijeweski said 988 staff provide clinical responses that often avoid law-enforcement or emergency-department interventions and that the House reduced the governor’s executive budget request for 988 to $20 million per fiscal year, below operational needs.
Dr. Bridal Stroh, CEO and medical director of NETcare, described similar operational data: her agency served more than 26,000 988 contacts in 2024 and reported 95% of contacts were resolved without dispatching emergency responders, with 3% receiving in-person mobile response rather than a 911 law-enforcement response. NETcare and North Central urged the Senate to restore the executive request of $34 million in SFY 2026 and $41 million in SFY 2027 to support statewide 988 operations and the mobile crisis infrastructure.
Why it matters: Witnesses described steady month-over-month increases in demand for 988 and said reduced appropriations in HB 96 would require scaling back operations, risking longer response times and greater reliance on 911 and emergency departments rather than clinical crisis response.
Ending: Providers emphasized that 988 is cost‑effective and lifesaving and asked the Senate to restore the governor’s executive funding levels for the lifeline in HB 96.
